'Squeezing life out of spectacle' St Kilda's a borefest...

[SainterK]

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/s ... 5860855366

I know I shouldn't let it bug me, but this kind of press is starting to get me all cross.

I just don't understand their angle, is because of the 'ugly brand of footy' or is it because St Kilda continues to make them look foolish?

They are the one's that put all the external pressure of 'No Roo, No St Kilda' then complain about the style of play utilised to win a game without him?

The only possible negative is a loss of Friday night football...but in the context of what Ross is trying to achieve, it's a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.

[Saintsfan]

Oh fiddley diddley dee

The journo is just spruking what every male female and shemale will be discussing around the photocopier/cleaners tea room on Monday morning

[saint75]

I find it all quite amusing. We were the only team on the ground last night were we? I believe that a lot of the reason for the type of game that was played last night was because of the Bulldogs. They watched the Port Adelaide game and thought they would try and take us on that way as well. They were just as defensive as we were. Funny how it is all out fault! Makes me chuckle.

Interesting listening to Ross Lyon on Channel 10 last night. Even he was frustrated with the type of game that was played watching it from the coaches box.

The Bulldogs had the run of play for the better part of the first 3 quarters. THEY were in control of it, not us. What type of statement does that make about them and how THEY played?

[na exa]

watching it now on the replay for the first time .

tough as shite game of footy... where is 'borefest' coming from?

me no understandy .

[ozrulestrace]

Oh fiddley diddley dee

The journo is just spruking what every male female and shemale will be discussing around the photocopier/cleaners tea room on Monday morning

Don't know about you Miss Scarlett, but I'll be at the photo copier, fax machine and tea room, discussing the victory of the Saints who never gave up.

[matrix]

well i thought it was kinda boring up till half time

[SainterK]

I find it all quite amusing. We were the only team on the ground last night were we? I believe that a lot of the reason for the type of game that was played last night was because of the Bulldogs. They watched the Port Adelaide game and thought they would try and take us on that way as well. They were just as defensive as we were. Funny how it is all out fault! Makes me chuckle.

Interesting listening to Ross Lyon on Channel 10 last night. Even he was frustrated with the type of game that was played watching it from the coaches box.

The Bulldogs had the run of play for the better part of the first 3 quarters. THEY were in control of it, not us. What type of statement does that make about them and how THEY played?

I'ts great you are able to distance yourself from it still, I used to find it all rather amusing, but now it's starting to get to me.

The boys won against the odds, literally, and this is the kind of rubbish they come up with?

[ralphsmith]

It is infuriating me. The endless barrage of crap our club cops everytime we win is annoying.


People just don't seem to understand what high pressure and well matched teams end up doing. They end up executing skills poorly, gameplans get nullified, it turns into a war of attrition.

The dogs lost all confidence going forward. Hesitated to kick goals, hesitated to kick to Hall, missed easy shots. In the end they choked up and were overrun by a patient, lethal and deadly team who will never ever lie down and die. We will lure you and lure you then when you are weakest we strike a blow that knocks you down for the count.

Sorry if that's not entertaining football Mr Generic Beer Swilling idiot at the pub on Friday night.

This is not a spectacle for neutrals to enjoy, that is a side-effect. This is a game of football for stkilda or the dogs to get 4 points and proceed to the next stage. Personally, that was the most exciting game of the year for me! Yes the final 10 minutes made up for the rest of the game.

[markp]

Stuff 'em.

It was only boring if you didn't care about the result... the Dogs are equally responsible for the spectacle as they tried to beat us at our own game, and we could not let that happen!

I dont see why 'defensive' footy of this nature is so derided anyway... did folk prefer the blowout of ANZAC day?

Not every game will be worthy of owning on dvd, we are down players and have to win any way we can till they return.

So... stuff 'em!

[GSG]

[quote="ralphsmith"]It is infuriating me. The endless barrage of crap our club cops everytime we win is annoying.


Don't let it worry you too much. At the momen, and all last year, St Kilda makes the journos look stupid all the time. It took us about 13 rounds of winning every game until the press thought we were the real deal. It only took a NAB cup for the Bullies.
We lose one game and in Friday's papers (both Age and Sun), the vast majority gave the win to the Bullies .... we keep proving them wrong.

Let's just keep doing this - let's just keep annoying the hell out of them.!

[saint75]

EXCELLENT posts markp and ralphsmith. You have both summed it up perfectly.

SainterK, I will explain to you why the media and their carp this morning does not bother me. My son and I were in the front row a couple of bays around from the St Kilda cheer squad last night when the siren went. At the end of that game, we saw the looks on the faces of our players and we watched all the fist pumping and hugging and elation amongst them (along with a lot of fence bagging from myself and my young son we were that thrilled by coming away with the win).

Joey came straight over to my son (pumping his fist still as he made his way over) and put a footy straight into the hands of my son. The look on his face and a few other players summed it up for me in that instant. That win, no matter how it was achieved, meant EVERYTHING to them in the face of the scrutiny they have faced since Nick went down.

This team now thrives under that scrutiny. They LOVE to prove the media wrong and only failed to do so on one occasion last year - the GF. They will do everything in their power to rectify that this year, Roo or no Roo.

[saintbrat]

read this quote this morning and knew it made sense

''Life's only boring if you make it boring.''

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/a ... -tzf4.html

game played tense and tight- all the cliches-
only played as well as allowed to play- all night commentators saying - " if the dogs can.... If they hold them...... if they restrict them... etc'

there were two teams out there, they played the game that way too.- I like many wondered why the Dogs wouldn't press it forward or try for long goals..

then realised that the Saints can defend from the opposition goal mouth so surely and the last two weeks the Saints defence have rebounded time and time and time again. even Raph has marked surely and moved the ball sideways or forward.

[bozza1980]

Stuff 'em.

It was only boring if you didn't care about the result... the Dogs are equally responsible for the spectacle as they tried to beat us at our own game, and we could not let that happen!

I dont see why 'defensive' footy of this nature is so derided anyway... did folk prefer the blowout of ANZAC day?

Not every game will be worthy of owning on dvd, we are down players and have to win any way we can till they return.

So... stuff 'em!

Spot on all 4 fronts.

I too don't understand why a defensive game is always immediately derided. The same people who deride it bag Essendon for having no defensive side.

I've loved talk back this morning, talk of how if St Kilda keep playing this way and find themselves 5 goals down they will struggle. I am of the mind it is hard to be 5 goals down when you are only conceding 6 or 7 a game.

[bergholt]

I know I shouldn't let it bug me, but this kind of press is starting to get me all cross.

I just don't understand their angle, is because of the 'ugly brand of footy' or is it because St Kilda continues to make them look foolish?

what?

the angle is that it was a boring, nasty game to watch. that's it. i was there and have since watched it again, and i can only agree. it was a horrible game of football.

if we'd ended the game on fifty points and not got the win - like last week - this place would be in meltdown. we sneaked the result so everyone's happy. but let's not kid ourselves that it was at all enjoyable. (except the last ten minutes.)

that said, we're missing two of our four most attacking players in riewoldt and gram, so it's not suprising this is our style. but it won't work every week.

[SainterK]

I know I shouldn't let it bug me, but this kind of press is starting to get me all cross.

I just don't understand their angle, is because of the 'ugly brand of footy' or is it because St Kilda continues to make them look foolish?

what?

the angle is that it was a boring, nasty game to watch. that's it. i was there and have since watched it again, and i can only agree. it was a horrible game of football.

if we'd ended the game on fifty points and not got the win - like last week - this place would be in meltdown. we sneaked the result so everyone's happy. but let's not kid ourselves that it was at all enjoyable. (except the last ten minutes.)

that said, we're missing two of our four most attacking players in riewoldt and gram, so it's not suprising this is our style. but it won't work every week.

I don't kid myself about anything, and I couldn't care less if we win ugly....it's just that it's the same media who say...

"Anything less than a finals appearance would be a fail for St Kilda"

"No Roo, No St Kilda"

What do they expect?

[westy]

I get the feeling that journalists and a great number of the AFL following public don't rate St Kilda at all. If you read a number of reports on the game last night, we hardly rate a mention and we bloodywell won! Over here in Perth we had to put up with that know-all smartarse Brad friggin Hardy on 6PR or the pathetic pro Dogs comments from Chris Grant. When the game finally comes on TV at 7:40pm, we have to listen to the idiots on there. I watched a downloaded OneHD version of a recent Saints game and they lost the commentary a few times and all you could hear was the crowd. It was brilliant

[widereceiver]

My mates who follow the Swines said after they won the premiership, they didn't give a fat rat's about how boring they were to watch. (This was in the day when GT's blitzkrieg mono plan got us to 2 prelims. ONLY)

I know exactly how they felt, it's not entertaining but I feel heaps better about last night than last week. We could have pinched last week as well if we'd taken our chances.

Please, everyone who calls the wankers on radio remind them it's about winning the four points not providing a spectacle for Channel 7 who evidently don't think the footy's as important as broadcasting House and Gardens or whatever it's called.

[35...LEGEND]

watching it now on the replay for the first time .

tough as shite game of footy... where is 'borefest' coming from?

me no understandy .

My new av...........hope you don't mind

[meher baba]

The overwhelming majority of home and away AFL games are one-sided and the result is obvious by half time. You see plenty of free-flowing attack, but mainly from the one side.

We don't get many shoot outs in AFL nowadays, so a close result is going to involve either (a) an arm wrestle like last night or (b) one team getting a long way ahead and then getting run down.

(b) type games are the best, but (a) type are generally exciting too.

If the AFL wants to see more open play and kicking to contests, the answer is obvious: limit the interchanges. Open play, contested marking and players getting in the clear will happen when players get tired. Most fourth quarters still look like that. It'd start earlier if midfielders couldn't continually keep getting their breath back on the sidelines.

[na exa]

great game of footy.

in front when the siren went.

whats the problem again ?

our lads look a bit serious about taking whats ours ... that'll do this little fella

loverly rendition of the song as well... i could watch all that again ... bwhahahaha

go us.

..................................................................



edit .. great av bloke ... good onya

[bigred]

Back in 2007/2008 that kind of defensive game turned me right off football. That and what I saw as a DROP in the standard of umpiring at the time.

Funnily enough, these days I really enjoy a really tough, defensive pressure filled game like last night. I think that they are tactically brilliant. They are the kind of game where coaching really, really becomes evident. More so than a ten goal win.

There was a lot to like about last nights win.

Who gives a flower about the media...

As Dan Frawley said on MMM today....

"Helloooo....Saints are up on top here....come and get us if you can....Its another contender that failed to knock us off"

Screw em all. We got the points fair and square. And once again showed just how mentally and physically strong this team is.

[3rd generation saint]

Remember when they complained about Sydney's style of game?
Also remember what happened that year?

[ACTSAINTER]

Caller on the ABC (SS poster?) summed it up " I dont care if they play left footed under water as long as it wins the Saints a premiership"

[saintbrat]

As Dan Frawley said on MMM today....

"Helloooo....Saints are up on top here....come and get us if you can....Its another contender that failed to knock us off"
.

did you happen to hear Dal interviewed?

[AnythingsPossibleSaints]

I know I shouldn't let it bug me, but this kind of press is starting to get me all cross.

I just don't understand their angle, is because of the 'ugly brand of footy' or is it because St Kilda continues to make them look foolish?

what?

the angle is that it was a boring, nasty game to watch. that's it. i was there and have since watched it again, and i can only agree. it was a horrible game of football.

if we'd ended the game on fifty points and not got the win - like last week - this place would be in meltdown. we sneaked the result so everyone's happy. but let's not kid ourselves that it was at all enjoyable. (except the last ten minutes.)

that said, we're missing two of our four most attacking players in riewoldt and gram, so it's not suprising this is our style. but it won't work every week.

Totally agree. It was a shocking game to be at (except the last 15 minutes, when we finally decided it might be a good idea to be a bit positive and attacking) and I also just watched the replay and it was a snooze-fest. I ended up reading the paper through a lot of it, as it was so dreadful and boring to watch. It was like watching a Melbourne v Richmond game from last year, or something like that, but with more tackles.
I can totally see where those who don't follow either us, or the Dogs, are coming from. I expect most would have switched off before half time. Life is far too short to watch rubbish like that, especially if your side isn't involved. Soccer would almost be more exciting.
Those who say it's "not our fault" need to realise that the Dogs only went backwards and sideways because we had pushed pretty much our whole team into their forward half, so we "started it". You can bet they wouldn't have played that way if we hadn't done that.
The figures also back up the fact that we're responsible. As stated in the article, last night was the only game in the 10 years of footy at Etihad where the combined total of points for the two teams was less than 100. There was also a game where only 100 was scored, a game where 110 was scored and a game where 112 was scored. Guess who played in all of those games?
Now I'm not suggesting there isn't a time and place for everything, but I don't believe we need to be this negative. You'd think we were a team of "battlers", who'd just lost their only two good players (Roo and Gram). We're not. Last night we had Lenny Hayes, Brendan Goddard, Nick Dal Santo, Leigh Montagna, Justin Koschitzke, Sam Fisher, Sam Gilbert and Stephen Milne, who are all either "elite", or capable of playing elite footy and the rest were plenty capable. That's many more than most teams, yet we played for most of the game (and basically all last week) as though we were one of the bottom ranked teams who can only win by playing ultra-negative. We're not.
We got what we deserved last week and again for 3 quarters last night and would have probably been smashed if the Dogs had kicked straight early in the game, when they were eclipsing us all over the ground. They kept us in it early, and then handed it to us on a platter, late, when they came to a grinding halt.
We were very lucky, and I sure as hell hope we don't keep playing that way, as it's not necessary for us to win (and in fact we weren't winning playing that way for 3.5 quarters and didn't win last week) and it's certainly not good for the game.